Comcast’s new 305 Mbps plan lets users fill data cap in 16 minutes

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It’s only obvious to those who are paying attention, but Comcast and Verizon have been playing a silly game for the last few years when it comes to data offerings. One company will offer a new speed tier, and the other will offer a matching tier that one-ups the other by some insignificant amount. Recently, Verizon’s Quantum FIOS broke 300 Mbps download speeds in a few markets. How does Comcast plan to respond? Why, by offering 305Mbps download speeds in competing FIOS markets of course. Unfortunately, there’s still one critical difference between Verizon and Comcast when it comes to the service, and that’s data caps. In fact, Comcast’s existing data caps would theoretically allow a user to max out their cap in 16 minutes with this new 305 Mbps plan.

The sheer volume of things needed in order for a user to actually be using 305 Mbps for 16 continuous minutes is far beyond what the average user is capable of. In fact, according to Comcast the average user only consumes about 12GB every month. In May of this year, however, they announced that they were increasing their data cap from 250GB to “a more flexible system” which turned out to basically be 300Gb in a month. If 12Gb is the average, than it probably doesn’t matter to the average user if that 12GB comes in at 25Mbps or 305Mbps. The 305Mpbs data plan is clearly aimed at extreme users who have extreme data needs, and if those speeds are attractive to those users, they are going to use way more than 12GB every month.

Regardless, Comcast will continue competing with Verizon for the sake of competing. Sometime this year, Comcast will make their 305Mbps data plans available to select markets. There’s not a great chance that Comcast will be offering an upload at even one third of that speed, but the company will be able to say that they offer a faster service that Verizon. Should the right person get a hold of the service, that 305Mbps connection could be the most exciting 16 minutes of their life.